Search is on for BETA Equine Thesis of the Year

Colleges and universities throughout the UK and Ireland are being invited to take part in the 2017 BETA Equine Thesis of the Year competition as part of a drive to reward and promote the excellent work carried out by students on equine-related courses.

Each academic institution will go head to head, submitting one undergraduate thesis as the search gets under way to find the winner of this prestigious award. All entries will be considered as part of a two-tier judging process and students who make it through to the final will be called to present their work to a panel of judges at the Woodland Grange Hotel, near Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, on Sunday 29 October. The winner and runner-up will then be announced and presented with their awards and cash prizes.

The Equine Thesis of the Year competition was reintroduced by BETA in 2016 after a three-year break. “The response to the award was phenomenal and a clear indication that it has been very much missed by both the academic community and wider equestrian industry,” said BETA executive director Claire Williams. “We're really looking forward to continuing in our quest to put undergraduate research back on the map and building on the success of last year. There is a wealth of innovation, robust research and out-of-the-box thinking going on and we are proud that BETA is playing a key role in bringing it to the fore.”

The 2016 Equine Thesis of the Year Award was claimed by University of Limerick student Alison Brassil with her dissertation titled The Effect of Paternal Age on Progeny Performance in Thoroughbreds.

The runner-up was Tegan Hemingway-Wood with her thesis The Effect of Water Depth on Equine Limb Swing Phase Kinematics During Walk Exercise on the AquaIcelander Water Treadmill.
The Equine Thesis of the Year competition was originally developed by Graham Suggett and Pat Harris in the late 1990s. It was hosted and administered by the Royal Agricultural Society of England (RASE) as a means of recognising the good work done by equestrian undergraduates until 2012.